


the stars we gaze at

by Minilolli



Series: A Road Trip We Don't Deserve [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: I don't know what this is!, Insert shrug emoji here, M/M, a sort of lowkey southeast gothic on my part, but i have a whole mcfreaking series to it now!, but that's totally self indulgent and nothing u (as the reader) should worry about, tim had a mental breakdown and this is how he's gonna deal, u could say, uh runaway tim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-21 19:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14292144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minilolli/pseuds/Minilolli
Summary: Tim looks back at Jason and catches him staring. Those eyes, blue and piercing, don’t waver as they continue looking at him. It’s enchanting and he hasn’t really gotten to ever look at Jason in the eyes before until now and he could almost compare the color to the sky that’s brightening up above them.“You mind if I join you for the rest of your trip?”





	the stars we gaze at

**Author's Note:**

> no major warnings in this one but uhhhh if there's any grammar mishaps please tell me! I can only read something so many times and still miss things. My grammar is also subpar so i'm okay with any help

Seeing a star in Gotham is like seeing Superman’s smile on TV. Not impossible but very unlikely. Though, when they appear on a rare cloudless night? It’s breathtaking.

Twinkling in the sky and if you’re lucky, maybe you’ll find a shooting star. If anything it’s more likely to have an alien invasion than see a shooting star.

So, when Tim’s sitting on the hood of a car staring up as there are tiny streaks of stars flying by with a slight fading of dark to light it’s beautiful. A sight that one would witness from pictures on Instagram. 

The car underneath him rumbles while there’s a muffled sound of music coming from the radio. The night’s weather is cool and there’s a light breeze that fills the air but not enough to lift the sand for it to fly everywhere.

A perfect night.

Tim has no idea why he’s out here. 

Not a single theory on why he’s even driving in the Southwest United States, sleeping in crappy motels, wondering if he’ll make it to the next gas station, seeing nothing but long stretches of desert and road. Maybe a truck will pass by or a cop car but he’s by himself and the radio is the only noise he’ll hear for hours. 

Other times it’s waiters from diners and the gas station attendants that are mom and pop owned. He just knows that he’s been out of Gotham for two weeks now and the road still seems endless. 

Tim could have gone anywhere. He could have decided to drop in on the Teen Titans and hung out with them until whatever this is goes away or stayed with Kon on the Clark farm. He could have gone to Hong Kong and visited Cas but instead, he packed up, picked up a used car, and just began driving away. 

His phone is off so no one can track him. Instead, he’s using some phone he picked up when he passed by a small town that lets him keep up with what’s happening around the world just in case without compromising his location. No number just data. He brought his laptop but hasn’t turned it on and the money he’s been using is all cash or from a debit card of an account that doesn’t even belong to him. It’s actually Jason’s card but the guy doesn’t know Tim had it until now since Tim’s actually using it.

Tim isn’t running away, per say, but he’ll admit that he might be hiding just a little. Not out loud but to himself on early mornings like this where the  stars are shooting past and his thoughts are nice to him so he builds up the effort to say “Yes, I’m hiding from them.” 

Who is them? Faces and names pass through his mind but he’ll address that answer another night.

Of course, eventually, someone was going to find him. Logically, he expects Dick to attempt with Barbara because they’ll be one of the first to notice even if Dick’s face isn’t what he wants to see at all. Bruce doesn’t have time for Tim and Damian would only do it if he had to and it’d take a lot longer than a month for him to say yes. Duke and he aren’t even close enough for Duke to expend energy into looking for him. Steph would try for it but they haven’t talked much in months ever since she went to Europe and Cass is still in Hong Kong. It could be Kon but no one, except maybe Dick, would reach out to anyone outside and, well, Tim is okay with that. He doesn’t want to be found. 

Except he is found when moments later he hears an engine slows next to his car. The tires hit rubble and rocks creating this grating sound before coming to a stop and the engine is cut off. It’s a motorcycle with a rider that surprises Tim.

Especially when Jason climbs on the hood, lies down next to him, and shifts to get comfortable. Tim gets a whiff of cigarette smoke with whatever cologne that Jason uses. It’s almost enticing.

“Nice view.”

“What are you doing here, Jason?” 

Tim knows Jason can find him. Tim has his card so of course he can track him easily but why would Jason even bother? Their relationship is strictly coworkers at best and wasn’t Jason supposed to be galloping over the world with Roy and Starfire? Or was it Artemis and Bizarro now? Tim’s unsure. He’s lost track of things and Jason was one of them.

“I can’t come and check on my own baby brother?” Jason’s words ring out in the air and Tim cringes at them.

“We were never brothers and you know it.”

Jason shrugs but he concedes to Tim.

Tim wants to get angry. He wants some kind of red fury to build up inside of him so he can spit out insults at the once boy wonder. Tell Jason to fight him, punch him in the face or stab him again. Something that’ll make Jason run away or give Tim a reason to drive off to find solitude somewhere else. Get his mind off of everything and anything. To satisfy that restless energy that’s developing deep inside but he can’t bring himself to do it. He’s burned out and there are no more logs to keep the fire of whatever he had going on. 

Instead Tim settles and thinks that maybe Jason isn’t the worst person to come looking for him.

“Did Bruce ask you to?” 

“No.” Jason’s voice doesn’t show a hint of anything. Just a simple no.

“Dick?”

“Not really.”

Tim waits. It takes two minutes of staring before Jason caves and gives out a sigh. 

“They’re worried about you but no, I came on my own good will.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“Jason.”

“I didn’t have to come, you know,” Jason huffs. He clenches his hand then relaxes it. The veins pop out over the skin right underneath the scars that reside there. His knuckles have wounds on them but they’re healed enough that it probably from a couple days ago. 

The stars are slowly disappearing as the sun rises from the horizon. Light peaks behind the mountains and gives a gradient of gold to light blue then dark blue. Tim likes the color and the desert feels so good at this moment in time. 

Tim doesn’t answer Jason back for a while but continues staring. His eyes finding the side of Jason’s face and he knows that if he came in closer he’d see faded scars and a couple of piercing holes in his ear. Tim wonders why Jason took them out. He looked good with them on. 

There’s a golden hue that’s filtering in the air and it lands so softly on Jason’s skin. The sight of him laying on the hood of Tim’s car, relaxed with eyes still up in the sky and lips chapped from his tongue constantly running over it, makes something pool in Tim’s stomach. He shrugs it off and attempts to forget it ever happened.

Maybe Tim harbored a crush on Jason a few years ago when he was young with a camera on him at all times but after getting beaten up and stabbed that feeling goes away. Sometimes. Or not. Tim has fucked up tastes and even more fucked up things going on inside of him and whatever his emotions are towards the other guy can be dealt with another time. 

Jason runs his hand through his hair pushing it back except there’s a tuft of white hair that continues to stick out defiantly. It fits. Sort of a metaphor to Jason himself. His hair shouldn’t look so good after Jason’s been wearing a helmet but it does. Tim isn’t jealous. Not really. He’s more appreciative than anything.

“You didn’t,” Tim finally says. “But you still did.”

Tim knows. He can read Jason and knows that whatever this is was impulsive. Jason probably regrets it, cursing himself out while second-guessing his choices, and wondering why he thought this was a good idea because the guy’s awkward and has the same emotional capacity as Bruce himself. 

He came anyway, though, and he’s not leaving. Yet. 

For some reason, Tim holds onto it and locks it somewhere deep inside of his chest where his brain will pick at it years later when he wakes up without feeling numb to a face he could never get tired of snoring next to him.

For now, though, Tim settles on the sky they gaze at it as the sun comes up and Jason shifts. 

Tim looks back at Jason and catches him staring. Those eyes, blue and piercing, don’t waver as they continue looking at him. It’s enchanting and he hasn’t really gotten to ever look at Jason in the eyes before until now and he could almost compare the color to the sky that’s brightening up above them.

“You mind if I join you for the rest of your trip?” 

The look on Jason’s face is blank but those eyes hold some kind of uncertainty. If Jason could he’d take the words he uttered back as soon as possible but they’re out to the world for Tim to answer. There’s something there he can’t pin down and maybe he’s reading more into than he should be but his heart picks up and the idea of Jason holding his hand while driving through the endless road wouldn’t be so bad.

The words are out of Tim’s mouth before he even comprehends it. “No, as long as you drive.”

A grin on that face is really something Tim wouldn’t mind seeing every day. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos welcomed!  
> Find me on tumblr at [galaxyofgays](http://galaxyofgays.tumblr.com)


End file.
